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I've been looking at web fonts lately, trying to decide whether I
should drop Verdana from my personal site in favor of some other
typeface. Despite the fact that it is a very readable font, I know that
there are valid technical reasons to not use Verdana as a default font.


There's also a good argument for not setting a font family at all
(other than serif/san-serif). But that's a little too extreme for me.

If I'm going to design a page, I want to actually design it. Which
leaves open the question of picking a font that is nice and readable.

Lucida is a good-looking font that is installed by default on a fairly
large number of computers. It doesn't have the chunky child-handwriting
look that some of the glyphs in Verdana has. It looks pretty good on OS
X. But on Windows...

<http://www.jimroyal.com/fonts/fonts_macos.html>

<http://www.jimroyal.com/fonts/fonts_windows.html>

These screen shots were taken on Jaguar and Win2K.

Fact is, just about every font except Arial and Verdana looks less than
optimal on Windows, when compared to OS X. It pains me to pick a font
that doesn't look great on both platforms. But the choices are so few.

So the question is... What do you think of Lucida on OS X? And is it
minimally acceptable on Windows, compared to Verdana?

And here's another thought: What about giving Mac users Lucida and
Windows users Verdana?

All opinions are most welcome.

Jim Royal <>
"Understanding is a three-edged sword"
Calendar: http://jimroyal.com/calendar
Visit http://jimroyal.com

--
Jim Royal
"Understanding is a three-edged sword"
http://JimRoyal.com

"Jim Royal" <> wrote in message
news:050920031618339091%...
>
> <http://www.jimroyal.com/fonts/fonts_macos.html>
>
> <http://www.jimroyal.com/fonts/fonts_windows.html>
>

The difference is that on the mac the font is bold and on windows its not

If you like the bold font then you can just add font-weight:bold; to
your CSS
(for the mac, it looks like its defaulting to bold)

Jim Royal wrote:

>There's also a good argument for not setting a font family at all
>(other than serif/san-serif).

Setting serif/sans-serif can also get you into trouble. The large
x-height issue that is a big part of why Verdana is considered a poor
choice as an author specified font is a common feature of sans-serif
fonts in general.

Specifying fonts for me is damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I
want to be a choirboy then I specify Arial and I don't go <90%. If I
decide to be naughty I use Verdana.


Headless

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In article <bjasar$gvig4$>, Augustus
<> wrote:

> The difference is that on the mac the font is bold and on windows its not
> (for the mac, it looks like its defaulting to bold)

Actually, it is not:

<http://www.jimroyal.com/fonts/verdana.gif>

The Mac OS simply antialiases the fonts differently.

--
Jim Royal
"Understanding is a three-edged sword"
http://JimRoyal.com

In article <>, Headless
<> wrote:

> Setting serif/sans-serif can also get you into trouble.

Often, you have no choice. When making a complex document, a mixture of
serif and sans serif is often necessary for good reabability.

> Specifying fonts for me is damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I
> want to be a choirboy then I specify Arial and I don't go <90%. If I
> decide to be naughty I use Verdana.

Arial. Ick. (Pardon me, but really. Ick.)

--
Jim Royal
"Understanding is a three-edged sword"
http://JimRoyal.com

"Jim Royal" <> wrote in message
news:050920031700514833%...
> In article <>, Headless
> <> wrote:
>
> > Setting serif/sans-serif can also get you into trouble.
>
> Often, you have no choice. When making a complex document, a mixture of
> serif and sans serif is often necessary for good reabability.

This has not been proven by any reading performance study I've seen.

--
Karl Core

Charles Sweeney says my sig is fine as it is.

Jim Royal wrote:

> The Mac OS simply antialiases the fonts differently.

Are we talking OSX here? If so, then having not used it myself, I think
that it most likely does it the same way that a lot of Linux systems do
it, so you'll get similar results on a Linux machine like mine )

I have actually gotten used to this "chunky" way of anti-aliasing and the
rare times that I use a Windows browser, I feel like the fonts are kind of
naked and are missing something!

--
Dylan Parry - http://www.DylanParry.com

Dylan Parry <> wrote in
newsan.2003.09.05.21.40.31.642088@webpageworksho p.co.uk:

> Jim Royal wrote:
>
>> The Mac OS simply antialiases the fonts differently.
>
> Are we talking OSX here? If so, then having not used it myself, I
> think that it most likely does it the same way that a lot of Linux
> systems do it, so you'll get similar results on a Linux machine like
> mine )
>

I have OSX and Win2K side by side on my desktop and the Mac has beautiful
anti-aliasing (I'm looking at a web page with Verdana fonts), noticeably
smoother than my Win2K box, I'd say. BTW, OSX has practically nothing in
common with Linux at the graphical display level.

Jim Royal wrote:

>> Setting serif/sans-serif can also get you into trouble.
>
>Often, you have no choice.

You always have a choice.

>When making a complex document, a mixture of
>serif and sans serif is often necessary for good reabability.

Imo serif fonts are poorly suited for body text for screen media, but a
serif font is the default font in every web browser I have (because
specifying a sans serif font as the default user font normally results
in encountering lots of micro fonts).

>> Specifying fonts for me is damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I
>> want to be a choirboy then I specify Arial and I don't go <90%. If I
>> decide to be naughty I use Verdana.
>
>Arial. Ick. (Pardon me, but really. Ick.)

On screen media there is little difference between the various sans
serif fonts for normal body size text. I use Arial because it's x-height
causes slightly less problems than other sans serif fonts.


Headless

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On Sat, 06 Sep 2003 00:32:28 +0100, Headless <> wrote:


>On screen media there is little difference between the various sans
>serif fonts for normal body size text. I use Arial because it's x-height
>causes slightly less problems than other sans serif fonts.
>
>
>Headless

So if you are designing a web site and want to select 4 or so fonts
for headers divs bodys etc., what would use? Would you use different
fonts for lists? What about Tahoma? Is that an acceptable font?

A Johnson

"There would be a lot more civility in this world if people
didn't take that as an invitation to walk all over you"
- (Calvin and Hobbes)